This episode is all tools for stepping back from the process of negative rumination and choosing a different path: awareness, neutrality and openness. A lot of what we live through is created in our mind, and thoughts catalyze more similar thoughts. When it comes to negative rumination, a lot of these thought sequences are based in old, strong emotional imprints from long ago that are triggered in the present.

When we get into a negative thought loop, a sequence of feelings is created by an initial thought. For example, “I am sad because I am alone tonight, and this person didn’t call me back.” Which catalyzes, “Where am I in my life?” Which catalyzes, “Now I feel emotionally low” which triggers the brain’s desire to double down on this feeling and wallow in this rapidly increasing feeling of sadness. This catalyzes the next thought and the next one and the next one after that.

I am doing something super simple in this episode: I am writing directions for how to dismantle these kinds of thought sequences. What happens is our brain is fighting for control over feelings of pain, powerlessness, and ego-threat by rationalizing it: giving it a logical set of terms and labels. When we have a blip of anxiety or pain, we say, “This feeling is from this present-day thing in my life.” And we have already jumped on the bandwagon of that sequence of feelings, thinking we are in control of managing it when in reality, we are creating it.

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This is a GREAT podcast for moms that I have learned a lot from. It’s called “3 in 30 Takeaways for Moms” – it’s hosted by Rachel Nielson, a mom who seeks out the advice professionals for actionable advice around child-rearing. Rachel is a lover of practical ideas, conversations with kindred spirits, and her two wild miracle children who keep life interesting. I’m a mom so I am always looking for podcasts that help with child-rearing.

In this excerpt from episode 401 of 3 in 30, Rachel interviews board certified integrative family physician, activist, and TEDx speaker Dr. Setti[1]  about accessing radical gratitude, especially in times of difficulty. In this takeaway you will hear one suggestion for how we can use gratitude to turn us toward our life instead of away. If you want to listen to the entire thing, here’s the full length episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/401-how-radical-gratitude-can-change-your-life-dr-tanmeet/id1296627876?i=1000676478660

And to follow Rachel’s show you can check out 3in30podcast.com

IG: @3in30podcast 

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This is an episode aimed at being connected to yourself in a loving way and coming from compassion with others in your life. It’s an invitation to connect to yourself and others more deeply. Grace is defined as courteous goodwill or (in religious terms) the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God. I am using this term “grace” to refer to a resting state of love and receptivity. This is how we can be of service to others and also how we expand our quality of life. The greatest path to a feeling of self-satisfaction is to do something that you are proud of, which comes about pretty often when you live from a state of grace as you move through the world.

To be honest, I am very embarrassed by this episode but I 100% mean it. It’s SUPER gooey and touchy-feely, but it’s something I need to hear and therefore, I am posting it! Why? I feel we are all managing the imbalances created by a fast-paced, adult, functioning life, and many of us are medicating to have access to our humanity. We get these fleeting windows where we have a full awareness of life’s meaning, our boundless love, and creativity. So this is a reflective episode aimed at being able to access these parts of ourselves and live through them. Tapping into the vein that was so primary in our childhood. I think part of that equation is to live in a state of grace: giving it to yourself and to others.

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This is for relationships that can be best described as dry kindling: dealing, politely, but no warmth or closeness. Maybe you feel your partner is critical, that you are invisible, and when fights occur, they go to DEFCON level 1 instantly, and nothing gets resolved, the loop only resets. So in the day to day, there’s little connection between you. If this sounds familiar, I want you to imagine you and your partner are in a glass display. Like a window at a store. Close to 90% of all communication is non-verbal, so if you are noticing there is no love and affection being expressed on a non-verbal level, this is one place to start. More on this in the episode plus tools for stepping back from the hurt. A little change can go a long way in allowing the love that still lives to come forth.

Big caveat: this episode is for those in “safe” relationships, not abusive ones. If you are in an abusive relationship here is one resource to get help: National Domestic Violence Hotline.  

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This is for anyone who has done self-work and is reentering a family situation where you know you have triggers. It’s so you can stay above the loops that tend to get us feeling angry, hurt or defensive – feeling like a child once again. If you’ve been healthier outside of a particular family dynamic, it can feel like you are getting pulled back into a stew of old feelings– even when everyone in the group has the best intentions and is doing their best to be loving. Projection is a massive piece of what triggers really upsetting family dynamics. We try and validate what’s inside by engaging those outside of us to affirm it.

The end of the year is also when a lot of “stuff” comes up: it’s a milestone because of the seasonal change, the holidays, revisiting old places and relationships. It can mean there’s a bit of taking stock: looking backward, looking forward. But also – a flooding of old feelings. This episode has tools for staying loving and neutral –doing no harm to yourself and others. My hope is that when you listen to this you will be able to come from love and also not take another person’s pain personally. When you know this ahead of time you can stay outside a trigger loop and come from love.

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“I’m ugly” “I should be better by now” “I’m a terrible mother” “My relevance is over” “I’m old”… Everybody has these thoughts. They are average. What matters is whether or not you engage with the thoughts and follow their tangent. You can quite literally start thinking ANYTHING repeatedly and you will start to see it as true. There is no such thing as true or not true, only what you experience through your own lens. The way the brain works is via comparison. It’s a threat-calculator – a unique and special one trained on our experiences. But it is not “us” in the bigger sense. “We” are the silent watcher, the presence within that witnesses these thoughts. The moment they occur there’s a choice to be made – you can follow the feeling and invest in the script, like you’re an actor in a play, or you can look at them – step back, and resume a state of non-attachment.

This is an episode all about escaping from thought prison. Have you seen around thoughts yet? This is the goal in this episode. Find this podcast on YouTube here.

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A lot of people fall in love with a person they see another person COULD be and not who they currently are. I was this way for a long time and yet I couldn’t see the pattern in my choices. Often we become so attached to a person after seeing their awesome potential and we hold on, despite bad behavior, for that person to reappear. We over-function to help them get somewhere new, thinking we are helping and changing something when we are not.

Often that means living through months or years of bad treatment when the other person is not capable of being kind, loving, receptive, or present with us. Maybe they are in their own world and we are left confused as to why our requests are so unreasonable. You might start to feel like you are crazy, like you are being too demanding, or that is what they make you feel.

It really doesn’t matter what they are really doing or thinking – you may be fixated on that. The most important info is that they are unavailable, not capable, not consistent and you have to accept that at face value. This is what I want to focus on in this episode. How you can move forward knowing this info and how you can avoid this situation in the future. This will hopefully demystify what is happening and why it is happening. And hopefully giving you a path forward in a loop you may be trapped in.

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This is for breaking out of cycles caused by vulnerability and anxiety – whether that’s your own mind or a common interaction with a loved one. What I am talking about are moments when you take another person’s feelings, personally. When we get triggered by their emotional response, we get defensive which creates distance and or hurt. That sequence is what I am creating an intervention around with this episode. This is also about reseating yourself in what I would call neutrality and openness: restoring faith in what is possible for you especially in the face of negative thoughts about yourself and your life. It’s really about redirection after you have what I would call an old record that gets put on the record player that is your mind. What we tend to do is that old dance of pain that takes us to this next emotion, and this next belief, and this next one. Like being in a haunted waltz with a zombie who won’t let go.

So if you have a predictable set of hopeless conversations with a spouse – OR you have a predictable rut of a thought process, yourself – this is for you. This is about wading through the mud of your engrained physical response, because with attention– there is change on the other side. Sending love!

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Guilt is like a gut punch that doesn’t stop. The loss of meaning is like a thick layer of glass in front of your eyes. It’s like a constant reminder that you are not who you aspire to be. Something is not aligned in who you are. There’s also the kind of guilt you feel when you know rationally that you should not feel guilty – like you are betraying a part of yourself that is real and cannot sever an old allegiance.

In this episode, I am going to try and open up some air around the source of your guilt. I cover different kinds of guilt – the kind that results from shame over something you did and also the kind that “doesn’t belong to you” (as with severing unhealthy family relationships). My goal with this episode is for you to be able to see it as an external object–or a symptom, and not identify with it, in the hopes that you can move through it despite the intensity of the pain. My goal for you is to create change in your life and to find meaning. The path back to light and joy or at the very least progress– is with change: growth, context, understanding. If you are in the loop of guilt, step back. There is something yet to untangle. Move toward growth and evolution.

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This is about growing your soul by doing the real work that will advance you. Seeing the muscle that needs work. I’m inviting you to choose to work on a coping mechanism that hurts you. To see around it – separate it from your person, and take apart its inner workings.

I think a lot of people keep themselves small or keep themselves occupied in things like relationships as a means to stave of feelings of pain. The pain results from an original wound that feels so vague and powerful that we stop to look at it. If you have a loop in your life, you might think it’s just “you.” You may have accepted it. But that is because you’re still in it and blinded by it. In order to change, we have to step back and start to work on it in very specific ways. This episode has tools for fostering that. So that we can follow our purest dreams, not the loop of what’s in front of us.

To donate to the amazing charity I mentioned and save some lives of foster kids, visit TheTeenProject.com xo!

Support this week’s sponsors! Hiya We've worked out a special deal with Hiya for their best-selling children's vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal you must go to hiyahealth.com/helpmebeme and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.

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